Yeah, this is definitely a massive slight. If it was any other book I'd buy it, but when you read terms like "horrorshow," or "platty", or "droogs" in the first few paragraphs it's not hard to see why one would look up words.

Also who describes "A Clockwork Orange" as old english?

There has to be a phrase for journalists that a conclusion ready in hand but their work is just finding scant/nonexistent evidence proving such a conclusion.

Something like "parallel construction" for law enforcement.

Could the student really not infer the meanings of those words from context? I don't think Burgess expected his readers to have a working knowledge of Russian.

> Also who describes "A Clockwork Orange" as old english?

Presumably the confused student who sought out a translation.